1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radiation scorecard which measures, records, analyzes, and reports cumulative radiation exposure to the patient population and provides automated feedback and recommendations to ordering clinicians and consultant radiologists and technologists. The data provided from this “radiation scorecard” would in turn be automatically recorded into a centralized data repository (radiation database), which would be independent to the acquisition site, technology employed, and individual end user.
2. Description of the Related Art
To date, medical imaging radiation monitoring is largely focused on occupational exposure for healthcare workers (e.g., technologists, radiologists, clinicians), with minimal attention paid to the patient population. While guidelines for radiation exposure exist for all imaging modalities producing ionizing radiation, these are commonly referred to only in problematic situations (e.g., pregnant female).
In its current form, diagnostic medical imaging procedures can expose the patient population to radiation in several different ways including external fixed sources (e.g., radiography or mammography), external moving source (e.g., computed tomography), or internal source (e.g., injected radionuclides). Other medical imaging procedures which deliver ionizing radiation to the patient include general radiography, fluoroscopy, interventional fluorography and angiography. Each different procedure had its own unique set of data points that must be recorded and analyzed, in order to calculate the radiation exposure associated with that event.
In order to compare doses from these different types of imaging procedures, an effective dose must be calculated, which is calculated as the average dose absorbed by body organs and tissues. This effective dose provides a generic equivalent in determining relative radiation risk between different exams but is not specific to the individual patient. In order to accurately track patient-specific radiation dose exposures for a given exam, each individual patient's profile (e.g., body habitus), should be taken into account for accurate quantification of the generic effective dose relative the individual patient—but this is currently not performed.
In the current medical environment, these radiation data points for the different medical procedures are not routinely collected or analyzed within diagnostic medical imaging. In fact, little if any attention is currently paid to radiation dose exposures outside of the pediatric patient population and those occupations routinely exposed to ionizing radiation in the workplace. While radiation dose exposures are calculated for therapeutic applications (e.g., cancer treatment), these are often quantified in isolation, and do not take into account the myriad of radiation exposures encountered with diagnostic imaging studies which are frequent and repetitive within the oncology patient population.
Further, there is no central repository of patient data from which cumulative radiation dose exposure can be calculated, nor is there a feedback mechanism to provide information and recommendations to various stakeholders, such as clinicians, radiologists, technologists, administrators and patients.
Accordingly, a comprehensive method and apparatus of measuring radiation exposure and providing automated feedback to stakeholders is desired.